Executing processes often generate log messages that can be useful in a variety of circumstances, such as determining what caused a malfunction in an executing process. In conventional computing architectures, a majority of processes may be executing on a single host, and the log messages from each executing process may be located on the same host and relatively easy to locate and process. Platform as a service (PaaS) cloud computing services are increasing in popularity. In a PaaS service, each executing process of a distributed system may execute on a different host. Locating and processing log messages from tens, hundreds, or even thousands of different hosts can be a logistical challenge. One solution to this problem is a centralized logging system that consolidates log messages from different hosts.